Why Can’t We Celebrate Adoption Day?
Friday was AJ’s third adoption day and we celebrated as we always have. We celebrated AJ’s adoption and we celebrated the day we became a family.
Yesterday I wrote on The Chicago Examiner that I was getting tired of people getting upset with the fact that we “celebrated” his adoption into our family. I wrote that his birth day is the day that he was born to his birth mother and his adoption day was the day he became part of our family. Sure, we celebrate his birthday for him and all he is (we don’t celebrate his birth mother that day) but celebrating his adoption day is about celebrating our family.
(And, I am not trying to be rude or condescending here, just honest).
We are not celebrating the day that he was ripped from his biological mother, as that was done two years before we even entered the picture. We are not honoring ourselves over her. We do not tell him that he is better off here than there. In fact, if he asks about his orphanage (the only place he knows) we tell him that yes, we will take him back to see it someday.
So why can’t we be allowed to celebrate his adoption day? Don’t biological families celebrate birthdays as family days? Shouldn’t all kids have a special day with their parents?
Yeah – there’s moms that call their kids on their birthdays even when they’re all grown up and the mom is like “It’s 4:37pm and 30 years ago this very minute you were placed in my arms” etc….etc…… Typically, adoptive parents don’t have that “birth moment” – so we celebrate Gotcha Day. Same thing. Plus it’s another great reason for cake.
I say as long as the child is interested in celebrating being adopted – go for it…!
I got fed up last year on my son’s adoption day and decided “screw it, it is what it is, and I’m celebrating it”.
And if people don’t like that, then they can take their words elsewhere.
Unfortunate that anyone would have a problem with the celebration of adoption day. In our case, we don’t really have a separate celebration because we were actually in Guatemala to pick him up ON his birthday so it just so happens to coincide with his birthday anyway. I think those that have an “issue” with it either do not have any experience/knowledge of adoption or have not opened their minds enough to understand the concept. Sad.
We are hoping that we will celebrate our daughter’s “gotcha” day around the same time as our son’s birthday in October this year!
I have never met anyone who was against celebrating adoption day. THis is new to me. I agree that it is a special day of us becoming a family. My children love having a special day to celebrate being adopted.
Who cares what someone else thinks–as long as he or she doesn’t make the child uncomfortable. Celebrate what you want to celebrate. The first tooth day, the first time he or she called you Mom day, the last time she word diapers day.
Having an adopted child is having a child. People have babies. Parents have children. We’re all alike in that respect. One further observation, kids get sick of being referred to as adopted. It’s just the way they came into your family–not who they are. Have fun and get on with loving each other to bits.
I agree with all of the above, and I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with it. I also agree with celebrating anything that would, somehow, involve cake
I’m trying to imagine who would argue against it. I’ve had some fairly inane arguments but that would have to take the cake (excuse the pun). Anyhow, yeah, happy adoption day. What a miracle when people find the families that they need (on both ends).
Maybe, it bothers some people ( including myself ) because in order for the “adoption” to have taken place, trauma and loss has been endured on behalf of the child / adoptee. So celebrating that day, may feel like, to some, as celebrating the loss in order to make that day possible at all.
Celebrate away, people talk crap about me all the time, and how I feel about adoption. Alas, my feelings are my feelings though and it is what it is.
As an adoptee I have a problem with celebrating adoption day. If a woman lost her partner to death, then three years later found another partner and was really happy, would the two celebrate the day her first partner died?
Adotion is loss. It can’t exist without loss. Marking a specific day for that loss is cruel. Adoptees can often feel like they weren’t born. It can be feeling of coming out of no-man’s land. Making a big hoopla of being adopted can also add confusion to the the adopted person’s understanding of how they arrived in the world. It wasn’t through adoption – they have a family and identity that should be honored and respected, and if possible included in their life. Adoption day negates that reality.
Celebrating adoption day is like saying, we’re happy you lost your family and identity so we could get you. We are happy for your loss.
“If a woman lost her partner to death, then three years later found another partner and was really happy, would the two celebrate the day her first partner died?”
That analogy makes no sense. No, they wouldn’t celebrate the day her first partner died – they would celebrate the day she met her second partner. Nothing wrong with that.
Celebrating “Gotcha Day” is celebrating the child joined the adoptive family, NOT the day the child was removed from the biological family. To say that it’s not OK to celebrate Gotcha Day because trauma took place in order for the child to be adopted makes little sense, too. I have one biological child, and I will tell you that it hurt like a mofo when I delivered him. Does that mean it’s wrong to celebrate his birthday, since I experienced “trauma” on that day? I think not.
We will continue to celebrate Gotcha Day with our adopted son. His adoption was a joyous occasion for all of us. Anyone who disagrees can bite their tongues and smile as we celebrate our son’s special day.
I guess here’s the thing, especially with international adoption. The loss happened long before the adoption day happened. The adoption day scenario where a child in an orphanage gets to leave an institution and become part of a family–that sounds like a cause for celebration in my book. As a parent through adoption, I can’t do anything about people placing their children for adoption (in as far as I am out of control as to whether or not they relinquish). What parents through adoption can do is love the children who are placed for adoption with all their hearts. I see celebrating adoption day as a way to do just that–so celebrate away!
No-A-Day…I guess adoptive parents just see it differently. We are not trying to take away your identity or take away the fact that you have lost something. We are simply trying to celebrate, for one day of the year, the idea that we are a family.
We work so hard the rest of the year on attachment, medical issues, loss, grief, etc. that we want to have one day to celebrate family.
It’s a glass half full.
I don’t blame adotive parents for wanting turn a negative into a positive. But, remember that every child has a family before adoption and that family still exists after adoption. Just because they’not living with their family, doesn’t mean the family isn’t hurting or wondering where their child is. And I gurantee you that adopted child is wondering and wanting to know what happened to their family. Who wouldn’t?
Many kids lost their families unecessarily. Many, like me, will spend thousnads of dollars, time and energy trying to find their lost family. I would not have appreciated my a-family celebrating adoption while I am wondering where my family is and why they’re not contacting me.
Here’s another scenario: say your neighbours were killed in a car accident and left behind a young child. You were then given responsibility for raing that child. Would you mark a day of celebration when that child came into your family? The reality is that no matter how a child loses a family, it’s tragic. Adoption happens once. I really don’t think it’s healthy to remind a person of that loss or celebrate being adopted. We want to help families stay together, not searate them then celebrate that separation.
I’m not saying that the loss happened on that day. What i meant was, that in order for that “adoption day” to be possible at all, a significant loss has happened. Its not only international adoptees who experience the separation and loss previous to the day of the adoption. I was in foster care for 6 months before I was adopted. My separation and loss happened before I was adopted, but for that “celebration” to be possible, my loss and my trauma had to happen.
To ME, it feels like celebrating that “day” is also celebrating that loss. Being thankful for the loss in order for the “celebration” to happen doesn’t feel good to me.
Thats how I see it from where I’m standing. To each their own.
I think that the people objecting to celebrating adoption day are choosing to focus on the negative aspect of the loss of the child’s birth family. We, as an adoptive family, are choosing to focus on the extremely positive aspect of becoming a new family that includes this child. I think to say that celebrating the day that your family becomes new with the addition of this beautiful child would in any way equate it with celebrating the potentially traumatic loss of the child’s first “family” is, in my opinion, ridiculous. My child was reliquished at birth. He knows about his “tummy mommy” and his foster mommy and we speak of them with love always. They gave him life and love and care until the parents God planned for him to live with forever were able to come to get him. That day for us is a day when we became a family that included him. It is a day for rejoicing. The comment about the child that has an adoptive family due to the death of the child’s parents is a whole different issue than we are speaking of here and should not even play a part in this discussion. Every family has their own way of recognizing this special time. Some choose to do it quietly, without fanfare. Others choose to make a celebration worthy of cake, presents and balloons, or in our case, pinnatas! Some choose to not focus on it at all. It is everyone’s individual choice and I wish that everyone would respect the choices that others make and not judge them based upon their own personal opinion, or bias. My bet would be that the majority of those who focus on the negative have never experienced the joy that adoption can bring to a family and therefore can’t appreciate the desire to celebrate it.
I agree with Janet’s post. We have 2 adopted children who were both relinquished at birth. Their birthmom’s and families all made a very difficult but very loving and sacrificial decision to place their children for adoption. We have celebrated their adoption days each year…which is they day of their final adoption into our family. One of our birth parents even suggested the idea to us at the hospital after birth. We go through their adoption lifebooks, talk about their birth mom’s and families, and share how 2 families were joined together when he was born and how much both love him. My children are not confused at all about their life, where they have come from, who their family is and why we celebrate this day each year. Personally, I think ignoring it would be ignoring the love and devotion of their birthmoms.
Chris and Janet, I totally agree.